I'm heading to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the annual gathering of the mobile industry. It's always an exciting event and I meet a lot of interesting companies, some with whom I'm already acquainted, industry leaders, some new to the segments on which I focus but well known in mobile, and others that I've never heard of.
When I arrive in Barcelona on Sunday, I'm going to begin using the MWC AR Navigator, an application developed by mCRUMBS in collaboration with GSMA, the organizer of MWC, to make getting around the city and the event easier and efficient as possible (and with the assistance of AR, of course).
On Monday Feb 27 my first priority will be the Augmented Reality Forum. This half-day conference is sponsored by Khronos Group and four Khronos member companies: Imagination Technologies, ST Ericsson, ARM and Freescale. Through the AR Forum presentations, these companies are driving mobile AR awareness and sharing how their new hardware and open APIs from Khronos will improve AR experiences.
After the presentations, I will be moderating the panel discussion with the speakers. Join us!
In the following days, my agenda includes meetings with over 50 companies developing devices, software and content for AR experiences. Many of those with who I will meet don't have an actual booth. Finding these people among the 60,000 attendees would be impossible without appointments scheduled in advance (and the aid of the MWC AR Navigator)! Are you attending MWC and want to set aside a quick briefing with me, please contact me as soon as possible.
If you haven't booked meetings but want to see for yourself what's new for AR in 2012, I recommend that you at least drop by these booths for demonstrations:
- Imagination Technologies – Hall 1 D45
- ST Ericsson partner zone – Hall 7 D45
- ARM – Hall 1 C01
- Freescale – AV27
- Qualcomm – Hall 8
- Nokia/NAVTEQ – Hall 7
- Alcatel-Lucent – Hall 6
- Aurasma (HP) –Hall 7
- Texas Instruments – Hall 8 A84
- Intel – Hall 8 B192
- VTT – Hall 2 G12
- mCRUMBS and metaio – Hall 2.1 C60
- HealthAlert App – Hall 2.1E65
- Augmented Reality Lab – Hall 2H47
- Blippar – Avenue AV35
- BRGR Media – Hall 2 F49
- Pordiva – Hall 2 E66
- wöwbile Mobile Marketing – Hall 7 D85
These are not the only places you will see AR. If you would like me to add others to this list, please leave a comment below.